Welcome

Hello, my name is Dionne and I have been crafting for a very long time. As a very young child my mother tried to teach me to knit, it was a disaster. However, it must have sparked an interest in making things and, partly to prove that I was not totally useless and partly because I really wanted to make things, I taught myself to crochet. Over the years I have developed a love of cross stitch and all types of paper craft ..... I eventually even taught myself to knit.

I am married to a very understanding man, thank goodness, because I spend all my time either crafting, thinking about crafting or talking about crafting. I am hopeless at housework and dinner is often late!

Monday, 21 January 2013

Each year I think how nice it would be to send proper thank you notes to all of my family and friends who have given me Christmas presents, but it is a busy time of year and what I actually send is an email, which I am sure you will agree, is not the same.

Today sees a new challenge at Crafty Boots Challenges, the theme was chosen by the lovely Helen and is entitled 'New'. I was lucky enough to receive several crafty items for Christmas so I got them all out and chose this really pretty 'Thanks' stamp from Stampin' Up as my new item.

I made 12 cards so, hopefully, I shall have enough cards to send one to everyone who gave me a Christmas present.

The papers and card I used are fairly new, I got them from Stampin' Up just before Christmas. I coloured the stamp with my Wink of Stella pens so they have a nice twinkle to them. To finish the cards I added some Card Candi from Craftwork Cards.

So, a big thank you to all my friends, especially the ones who gave me crafty bits and I promise to get my cards in the post now.

This post also gives me the opportunity to thank each and every one of you for all of your support over the past year. I really do appreciate your visits to my blog and all of the wonderful messages of encouragement you leave me. Thank you.

The rest of the Design Team have been very busy making inspirational pieces to share with you so please find the time to pop across to Crafty Boots Challenges and take a peak and don't forget to enter your own design, it can be anything new - for instance a new stamp, technique, papers or style, new baby, new home. Don't forget to us what your new thing is.

Monday, 7 January 2013

I hope you had a fantastic Christmas and New Year - and didn't it go by far too fast?

It is time for the first challenge of the year from Crafty Boots Challenges. The challenge for the next two weeks, which has been set by the very talented Freya, is to make something using black and one bright colour.

I found it quite hard to restrict myself to just two colours (or as my old art teacher would have said one colour and a shade). In the end I decided to make a set of 6 Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) using black and red glittered card and I took my inspiration from a thank you card my two year old nephew made for me last year.

I cut the heart shapes with a Sissix Bigz die, The red glittery ribbon is from a recent order from the Really Reasonably Ribbon people and the Chrystal buttons are from Stampin' Up.

The rest of the Crafty Boots Challenges Design Team have been very busy creating inspirational projects for you, please find the time to take a look